Damn Interesting

Tesla’s Tower of Power

Wardenclyffe Tower by Alan Bellows (soon to be available as an 18"x24" print). Download image

In 1905, a team of construction workers in the small village of Shoreham, New York labored to erect a truly extraordinary structure. Over a period of several years the men had managed to assemble the framework and wiring for the 187-foot-tall Wardenclyffe Tower, in spite of severe budget shortfalls and a few engineering snags. The project was overseen by its designer, the eccentric-yet-ingenious inventor Nikola Tesla (10 July 1856 – 7 January 1943). Atop his tower was perched a fifty-five ton dome of conductive metals, and beneath it stretched an iron root system that penetrated more than 300 feet into the Earth’s crust. “In this system that I have invented, it is necessary for the machine to get a grip of the earth,” he explained, “otherwise it cannot shake the earth. It has to have a grip… so that the whole of this globe can quiver.”

Though it was far from completion, it was rumored to have been tested on several occasions, with spectacular, crowd-pleasing results. The ultimate purpose of this unique structure was to change the world forever.

Tesla’s inventions had already changed the world on several occasions, most notably when he developed modern alternating current technology. He had also won fame for his victory over Thomas Edison in the well-publicized “battle of currents,” where he proved that his alternating current was far more practical and safe than Edison-brand direct current. Soon his technology dominated the world’s developing electrical infrastructure, and by 1900 he was widely regarded as America’s greatest electrical engineer. This reputation was reinforced by his other major innovations, including the Tesla coil, the radio transmitter, and fluorescent lamps.

In 1891, Nikola Tesla gave a lecture for the members of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers in New York City, where he made a striking demonstration. In each hand he held a gas discharge tube, an early version of the modern fluorescent bulb. The tubes were not connected to any wires, but nonetheless they glowed brightly during his demonstration. Tesla explained to the awestruck attendees that the electricity was being transmitted through the air by the pair of metal sheets which sandwiched the stage. He went on to speculate how one might increase the scale of this effect to transmit wireless power and information over a broad area, perhaps even the entire Earth. As was often the case, Tesla’s audience was engrossed but bewildered.

Illustration showing Tesla's demonstration of wireless electricity.

Back at his makeshift laboratory at Pike’s Peak in Colorado Springs, the eccentric scientist continued to wring the secrets out of electromagnetism to further explore this possibility. He rigged his equipment with the intent to produce the first lightning-scale electrical discharges ever accomplished by mankind, a feat which would allow him to test many of his theories about the conductivity of the Earth and the sky. For this purpose he erected a 142-foot mast on his laboratory roof, with a copper sphere on the tip. The tower’s substantial wiring was then routed through an exceptionally large high-voltage Tesla coil in the laboratory below. On the night of his experiment, following a one-second test charge which momentarily set the night alight with an eerie blue hum, Tesla ordered his assistant to fully electrify the tower.

Though his notes do not specifically say so, one can only surmise that Tesla stood at Pike’s Peak and cackled diabolically as the night sky over Colorado was cracked by the man-made lightning machine. Colossal bolts of electricity arced hundreds of feet from the tower’s top to lick the landscape. A curious blue corona soon enveloped the crackling equipment. Millions of volts charged the atmosphere for several moments, but the awesome display ended abruptly when the power suddenly failed. All of the windows throughout Colorado Springs went dark as the local power station’s industrial-sized generator collapsed under the strain. But amidst such dramatic discharges, Tesla confirmed that the Earth itself could be used as an electrical conductor, and verified some of his suspicions regarding the conductivity of the ionosphere. In later tests, he recorded success in an attempt to illuminate light bulbs from afar, though the exact conditions of these experiments have been lost to obscurity. In any case, Tesla became convinced that his dream of world-wide wireless electricity was feasible.

In 1900, famed financier J.P. Morgan learned of Tesla’s convictions after reading an article in Century Magazine, wherein the scientist described a global network of high-voltage towers which could one day control the weather, relay text and images wirelessly, and provide ubiquitous electricity via the atmosphere. Morgan, hoping to capitalize on the future of wireless telegraphy, immediately invested $150,000 to relocate Tesla’s lab to Long Island to construct a pilot plant for this “World Wireless System.” Construction of Wardenclyffe Tower and its dedicated power generating facility began the following year.

Tesla's lab at pike's peak

In December 1901, a scant few months after construction began, a competing scientist named Guglielmo Marconi executed the world’s first trans-Atlantic wireless telegraph signal. Tesla’s investors were deeply troubled by the development despite the fact that Marconi borrowed from seventeen Tesla patents to accomplish his feat. Though Marconi’s plans were considerably less ambitious in scale, his apparatus was also considerably less expensive. Work at Wardenclyffe continued, but Tesla realized that this his competitor’s success with simple wireless telegraphy had greatly diminished the likelihood of further investments in his own, much grander project.

In 1908, Tesla described his sensational aspirations in an article for Wireless Telegraphy and Telephony magazine:

“As soon as completed, it will be possible for a business man in New York to dictate instructions, and have them instantly appear in type at his office in London or elsewhere. He will be able to call up, from his desk, and talk to any telephone subscriber on the globe, without any change whatever in the existing equipment. An inexpensive instrument, not bigger than a watch, will enable its bearer to hear anywhere, on sea or land, music or song, the speech of a political leader, the address of an eminent man of science, or the sermon of an eloquent clergyman, delivered in some other place, however distant. In the same manner any picture, character, drawing, or print can be transferred from one to another place. Millions of such instruments can be operated from but one plant of this kind. More important than all of this, however, will be the transmission of power, without wires, which will be shown on a scale large enough to carry conviction.”

In essence, Tesla’s global power grid was designed to “pump” the planet with electricity which would intermingle with the natural telluric currents that move throughout the Earth’s crust and oceans. At the same time, towers like the one at Wardenclyffe would fling columns of raw energy skyward into the electricity-friendly ionosphere fifty miles up. To tap into this energy conduit, customers’ homes would be equipped with a buried ground connection and a relatively small spherical antenna on the roof, thereby creating a low-resistance path to close the giant Earth-ionosphere circuit. Oceangoing ships could use a similar antenna to draw power from the network while at sea. In addition to electricity, these currents could carry information over great distances by bundling radio-frequency energy along with the power, much like the modern technology to send high-speed Internet data over power lines.

Nikola Tesla

Given his supporting experimental data and previous engineering accomplishments, there was little reason to doubt the veracity of Tesla’s claims. But building the power station, the huge wooden tower, and the fifty-five ton conductive dome depleted the original investment money relatively quickly, leading to chronic funding shortages. The complications were further compounded by a stock market crash in 1901 which doubled the cost of building materials and sent investors scurrying for financial cover.

The Wardenclyffe team tested their tower a handful of times during construction, and the results were very encouraging; but the project soon devoured Tesla’s personal savings, and it became increasingly clear that no new investments were forthcoming. In 1905, having exhausted all practical financial options, the construction efforts were abandoned. Regarding the project’s demise, Tesla stated:

“It is not a dream, it is a simple feat of scientific electrical engineering, only expensive — blind, faint-hearted, doubting world! […] Humanity is not yet sufficiently advanced to be willingly led by the discoverer’s keen searching sense. But who knows? Perhaps it is better in this present world of ours that a revolutionary idea or invention instead of being helped and patted, be hampered and ill-treated in its adolescence — by want of means, by selfish interest, pedantry, stupidity and ignorance; that it be attacked and stifled; that it pass through bitter trials and tribulations, through the strife of commercial existence. So do we get our light. So all that was great in the past was ridiculed, condemned, combatted, suppressed — only to emerge all the more powerfully, all the more triumphantly from the struggle.”

If Tesla’s plans had come to fruition, the pilot plant would have been merely the first of many. Such “magnifying transmitter” towers would have peppered the globe, saturating the planet with free electricity and wireless communication as early as the 1920s. Instead, the futuristic facility’s potential went untapped for over a decade, until the tower was finally demolished for salvage in 1917.

The fall of Wardenclyffe thrust the brilliant inventor into a deep depression and financial distress, and in the years that followed his colleagues began to seriously doubt his mental well-being. His eccentricities became increasingly exaggerated, underscored by his tendency to bring home and care for the injured pigeons he encountered during his daily visits to the park. He also developed an unnatural fear of germs, washing his hands compulsively and refusing to eat any food which had not been disinfected through boiling. But his mind remained pregnant with groundbreaking ideas, as he demonstrated when he described radar technology in 1917, almost twenty years before it became a reality. In 1928, aged seventy-two years, he filed one of his last patents; it described an ingenious lightweight flying machine that was an early precursor to today’s tilt-rotor Vertical Short Takeoff and Landing (VSTOL) planes such as the V-22 Osprey.

Nikola Tesla shuffled off this mortal coil in 1943, suffering a heart attack alone in his hotel room. Though he kept copious diaries of his experiments and ideas throughout his life, they were notoriously vague and lacking in technical details. He preferred to rely on his photographic memory for such nuances, therefore much of his knowledge went with him to the grave. Some modern investigations and calculations, however, do support Tesla’s contention that wireless electricity is not only feasible, but it may have even been a superior alternative to the extensive and costly grid of power lines which crisscross our globe today.

Had Wardenclyffe been completed without interruption, Tesla may have once again managed to alter the course of history. Instant access to power, information, pirated phonograph cylinders, and lewd photos of bare-ankled floozies on the TeslaNet may have ushered in the Information Age almost a century ahead of schedule, making today’s world a very different place indeed. Perhaps one day we will enjoy the future that Tesla envisioned, albeit a bit behind schedule.

An interesting portrayal of Tesla can be seen in the movie “The Prestige”. He’s played by David Bowie.

Floj

Posted 10 July 2007 at 02:52 pm

Wow, Damn Interesting for sure! Tesla is easily my favorite scientist and engineer, and we have the same Birthday! He was so far ahead in technology that his feats of engineering seemed like magic to the world. His discoveries match our advancements even today!

That’s such an amazing idea to user the world to transmit power! I just wonder why we haven’t seen more movement towards such a system… hmm. I would love to see a TeslaNet in my lifetime! If we can master fusion power we’ll have energy to spare!

ti83

Posted 10 July 2007 at 03:04 pm

That’s pretty DI, though I thought you had already published articles about Tesla? I heard of the Wardenclyffe tower from DI…

Anyway, there’s also a typo…sorry:

“In later tests, he recorded success in an attempt illuminate light bulbs from afar,”

It may read better if a “to” were inserted.

Nicki the Heinous

Posted 10 July 2007 at 03:05 pm

Happy Birthday Floj! May you have the good health to reach 151.

I love that there’s a fine line between madness and genius. I’m sure Tesla did cackle diabolically on Pike’s Peak. Wouldn’t you?

Bollo

Posted 10 July 2007 at 04:38 pm

Is the thing on the right of the third picture some sort of flying saucer?

I’ve heard of his attempts at power transmission, but i’ve never heard anyone mention them in such a favorable light before. I was under the impression that it would be vaguely possible, but grossly innefficient. I suppose i will have to do further reading now.

Of course, even if it was better in some respects, it would never happen now. People go crazy enough over talk of such things as nuclear power(Radiations! Mutants! Green slime!), or global warming, etc.. Think of the average persons response to power being pumped directly into the atmosphere!

Power companies probably wouldnt care for it much either.. Anyone with the proper materials could tap in, and i can’t see that it would be detectable in any way.

Paul_in_SF

Posted 10 July 2007 at 05:02 pm

Tesla was a Damn Interesting fellow! Thanks for the article.

debbiebf

Posted 10 July 2007 at 05:14 pm

Electricity is not really my “thing”, but aren’t some people scared of living near radio towers because of the energy they put out? Don’t ham radio operators and those working with lots of electricity have higher incidents of cancer? Would the additional electricity coursing through the air have actually created more problems than it solved?

chris

Posted 10 July 2007 at 05:25 pm

Welcome back guys. I read from Down Under, and have been waiting your return from the independence day break.

Oh, happy Independence day.

discontinuuity

Posted 10 July 2007 at 05:39 pm

A couple of errors in this article:

Tesla’s lab was near Colorado Springs, which is at the foot of Pikes Peak, not on top. The only thing on top is a tourist shop and some toilets.

If the tower had worked, it would’ve ionized the entire atmosphere, or at least a 50 mile column of it, before it reached the ionosphere. Ozone might be good up there, but at ground level it tends to destroy lungs pretty quick. Tesla just misjudged the content of the atmosphere.

I recommend “Tesla: Master of Lightning” by Margaret Cheney and Robert Uth for further reading.

Bewildered

Posted 10 July 2007 at 05:53 pm

DI indeed! Tesla had all the right ideas. He once stated that all it takes to keep the earth resonating at it’s fundamental frequency is 480 horsepower, that’s all the losses you get. Any more power pumped in isn’t actually used or wasted until a matching resonant circuit is built and starts to draw power. He planned to put the towers near natural energy resources such as niagra falls and utilise his beautiful turbine design to “attach his machines to the wheelwork of nature” with the minimum of loss. Once there’s a resonating electric field on the planet it’s as simple as winding a wire into a coil with a little capacitance and whallah, you’re tuned into the ‘freely transfered’ power (not free as in beer, the energy still has to be put in to the earth at some point for you to take it out at another…) Awesome article Alan, Tesla is my hero (sorry Ferris, i still love you too)

jarvisloop

Posted 10 July 2007 at 06:40 pm

1.) I first encountered the story of Tesla at Niagara Falls (American Side). Who else has seen his statue there?

2. Does anyone here know if any scientist has proposed the idea of producing electricity without the use of power plants? Electricity exists naturally throughout all of Earth, of course. Has anyone proposed a method to harness and transmit this natural electricity? A gigantic Tesla coil is an example of this concept but too unwieldy for any practical use.

oldmancoyote

Posted 10 July 2007 at 07:16 pm

I’ve always liked this Tesla character. I’m sure he could cackle with the best of the mad scientists.

Too bad he didn’t make more headway with wireless power before the big energy companies took over the world.

If his bulbs lit up without being plugged in , how did he turn off the lights before bedtime?

z

Posted 10 July 2007 at 07:54 pm

I had researched the Wardenclyffe tower myself a bit too, but this article contained much more intresting information on Tesla. Thanks, very intresting!

I can’t help but feel that revolutionary inventions such as electricity or even ideas like the wireless energy idea just don’t happen anymore. Sure, things like computers and robotics are advancing but it’s not really anything “new” if you catch my drift.

GigsTaggart

Posted 10 July 2007 at 08:09 pm

“Modern investigations and calculations, however, do support Tesla’s contention that wireless electricity is not only feasible, but it may have even been a superior alternative to the extensive and costly grid of power lines which crisscross our globe today.”

You have got to be kidding. Alan, normally your fact checking is better than this.

Alan Bellows

Posted 10 July 2007 at 09:08 pm

discontinuuity said: “A couple of errors in this article:

Tesla’s lab was near Colorado Springs, which is at the foot of Pikes Peak, not on top. The only thing on top is a tourist shop and some toilets.

Oops.. you’re right… I said “on,” but I meant “at.”

If the tower had worked, it would’ve ionized the entire atmosphere, or at least a 50 mile column of it, before it reached the ionosphere. Ozone might be good up there, but at ground level it tends to destroy lungs pretty quick. “

It’s true that a thin column of air would be ionized, but I never said otherwise, so I don’t see how that’s classified as an “error.” The ionization would have been deliberate (see below).

Some tests have shown that very thing… and not just from crackpots. Granted, my phrasing might have implied a bit more certainty than I intended, so I’ve added the word “some” at the beginning of the sentence to add clarity.

I had to prune some details to keep the article from becoming too technical, but essentially the idea was to shine a narrow beam of UV radiation up into the sky to ionize the air and promote conductivity. That approach has its drawbacks, but it could have worked… in theory.

z

Posted 10 July 2007 at 09:24 pm

I’ve actually read from somewhere that scientists have done tests on wireless electricity and they actually succeeded in it… but it was only for a very short distance and such.

Misfit

Posted 10 July 2007 at 09:48 pm

Wow that’s awesome, I remember reading about different ways wireless power works on howstuffworks.com

it’s a fascinating read. Who knew there were so many ways of transmitting power wirelessly?

Floj

Posted 10 July 2007 at 09:58 pm

I always love the Damn Interesting comments that follow these type of articles!

debbiebf said: ” Don’t ham radio operators and those working with lots of electricity have higher incidents of cancer?”

I used to be deathly afraid of reaching into microwaves for just that reason, but I found out it takes much higher frequencies to cause cancer. I don’t think radio waves directly cause cancer because they don’t have enough energy, but I hear that they do affect us in different ways and microwaves realy hurt! But they don’t cause cancer.

Bewildered said: “DI indeed! Tesla had all the right ideas. He once stated that all it takes to keep the earth resonating at it’s fundamental frequency is 480 horsepower, that’s all the losses you get. Any more power pumped in isn’t actually used or wasted until a matching resonant circuit is built and starts to draw power.”

So Tesla’s plan was not to pump power into the earth, but to motivate the natural charge to resonate throughout the entire thing. Wow, that must be where he gets the idea of controling weather. If mastered, such an idea would allow us to essentially control lightning!
That’s such an incredible idea! Imagine harnessing the power of every thunderstorm on earth! I wonder what feats of engineering it would take to create such a motivation. hmmm… Of course that may be the totaly wrong idea. Pie… I mean research time!!

Nicki the Heinous said: “Happy Birthday Floj! May you have the good health to reach 151.

“

Hey Thanks!
Personally, I would laugh quite maniacally… and then eat some pie!

Chris1066

Posted 10 July 2007 at 10:08 pm

debbiebf said: “Electricity is not really my “thing”, but aren’t some people scared of living near radio towers because of the energy they put out? Don’t ham radio operators and those working with lots of electricity have higher incidents of cancer?”

That is a myth, although it persists today. Studies, some massive ones included, have shown no difference in cancer rates among people exposed to the types of electrical sources you mention (or power lines, or cell phones).

Bewildered

Posted 10 July 2007 at 10:28 pm

Alan/Floj From what I’ve read about Teslas work he had no intention of sending anything into the air. That is ‘wasteful radiation of energy’ He was intent on sending resonant electrical impulses into the earth with any power supply available, be it water generated electricity, coal generated… etc. Once the impulses are there, and banging around in the earth, they’ll stay there until such time as another resonant circuit takes the impulses back out. I picture it like this: I have a blob of Jello on a string about the size of a basketball (that’s our earth). If i whack the blob on the bottom with a stick, a wave will travel to the top of the blob then back down to the bottom again. Now if we hit the blob again when our initial wave comes back down to the bottom, we add to our original wave – that’s the resonance, nothing new, so far so good. If i hold a stick to the side of the blob, then when a wave passes my stick, it will push it away from the blob, then pull it back in again, i’ve just used up some of the power that was initially put into the blob from whacking it on the bottom. You can see that if i have a little wheel on the end of my stick i’d be able to get rotary motion from the waves. The real beauty of it happens when there’s a standing wave condition in the earth, where the the physical dimensions and conductivity of the earth determine the frequency of the waves you can use . I’ll dig around for my books tonight if i get time and whack up some references, the best one is the court hearing documents leading up to the Marconi court case, Tesla describes his world power system simply and easily (better than i have here) with a mechanical anologue, treating the earth as a fixed vessel filled with water and a couple of hand pumps. I’m addicted to his work!

I should also add that I have been mistaken in the past… so if you’re convinced I’m mistaken on this occasion or on any other, please provide credible sources and I’ll be happy to post a correction.

Alan/Floj From what I’ve read about Teslas work he had no intention of sending anything into the air.

He had several working theories (described pretty well in the Wikipedia article), but from what I can tell the Wardenclyffe tower was intended to test the Earth/ionosphere method. No one really knows for sure, because he didn’t give anyone the details.

So much of his information went uncatalogued that there are a lot of uncertainties about his research… sometimes that makes it hard to tell whether some of his ideas were loony or brilliant. Personally, I think this one was somewhere in between, in the “that may just be crazy enough to work” category.

Plank

Posted 11 July 2007 at 12:37 am

Electricity is really not my expertise but it seems scientist are finally catching on to wireless electricity looking at his link.

Just imagine how awesome it would be to be standing under that tower and see it running at full power.

Cori

Posted 11 July 2007 at 01:02 am

It’s so sad to see such the ideas of brilliant people get thrown away for reasons like lack of money and doubters.

Byrden

Posted 11 July 2007 at 02:34 am

I am intrigued by the notion of sending power into the Earth or the atmosphere, for people to pick up at remote locations.
I am especially intrigued to know whether they would pay the bills.

Falco Peregrinus

Posted 11 July 2007 at 04:08 am

As with most DI articles, this reminds me of so many things.

Alan Bellows said: “but essentially the idea was to shine a narrow beam of UV radiation up into the sky to ionize the air and promote conductivity. That approach has its drawbacks, but it could have worked… in theory.”

This reminds me of a recent thing I read and saw, from various sources, about how utilizing the blooming, ionization of air into plasma, effect of constant or pulsed high power laser beams one could effectively create a Star Trek-esque phaser type laser gun/taser with two conductive beams to complete the circuit wirelessly. An existing stationary security device with UV lasers, as seen here:

effectively does this, at a pretty penny and confluence with the Department of Defense if memory serves . Also, this blooming effect is a limiting factor for atmospheric use of high powered lasers.

The second thing this reminds me of reading/seeing, with much less creditability most likely, is something along a similar trend, even to the point of a means of storing power, if memory serves, about a microwave antenna array in Alaska, or some other northern pacific area, that could either affect the ionosphere or ozone layer, very vague memory on the ozone effect/s, in some significant or in some degree affect the weather in some way. This, if memory serves, was achieved by heating said region/s? to stimulate this effect. If a DI writer would like to take this up as a story, feel free to slog though its conspiracy scented mire.

Now regarding this…

RichVR said: “An interesting portrayal of Tesla can be seen in the movie “The Prestige”.”

In this movie, (spoiler alert!) when Tesla shows off his secret glowing lightbulb patch to the magician guy (spoilers over), I think that is sort of a reference to the sort of energy transmission techniques in this article and comments above and, as some may already know from various sources (Bill Nye I think for me maybe), this can be recreated under high tension power lines, not unlike Tesla’s two tube demonstration as mentioned above, allowing a glowing forest of fluorescent tubes to sprout. Also, I have heard, with skepticism, that some people have noticed this affect in electric fences running along high tension power lines and giving them a charge when off, even to the point of being able to shock someone supposably and that some have utilized it to the point of purposeful use. Pretty iffy stuff though.

Chris1066 said: “That is a myth, although it persists today. Studies, some massive ones included, have shown no difference in cancer rates among people exposed to the types of electrical sources you mention (or power lines, or cell phones).”

While I would agree that the general public’s exposure would and should be slim to nothing, maintenance workers, if they were to try to do their jobs while the transmission is going, would experience massive amounts of microwave and other radiation that could cook them on the inside very badly before they would even register it on their skin and the other radiations may cause cancers. This being said, of course they turn them off for them while they are working, barring accidents, and the distance gained with the towers should allow plenty of dissipation when in operation, one would think, to everyone else. But I’m neither a doctor or an engineer of any field so whatever.

DI article as ever. The idea of a composed and analytical Tesla cackling under the plasma streaked veil of night is awesome.

For a different view on the dangers of various forces in the atmosphere, read “The Zapping of America: Microwaves, Their Deadly Risk and Cover-Up” by Paul Brodeur.

I can’t remember just how scientifically sound it is, but, for those who are paranoid about big business/government and scared of everything, it’s an interesting read.

Lisette

Posted 11 July 2007 at 05:31 am

Telsa, like this article is damn interesting!

Richard

Posted 11 July 2007 at 05:51 am

DI article on a DI person!

Telsa is my favorite Mad Scientist. In addition to his work on power transmission and radio, he developed remote controlled devices, demonstrating them in 1898. My favorite invention of his was what he called the “earthquake machine”, a vibrating device with a variable frequency. You’d slowly change the frequency of vibration, until you hit the resonant frequency of an object (like a building). It would then shake itself apart… He terrorized his neighborhood while working on this device, rattling windows and knocking objects of shelves. It was also good for a practical joke. Visitors to his lab would be invited to try out his new oscillator. Standing on its platform, they’d get a “full body massage” – until the vibrations liquefied the contents of their lower intestines…

In a world where Welles’ Martians invaded in the summer of 1898, I see Tesla leading the fight, combining these two devices to make remote controlled oscillators that would shake the Martian war machines to bits, while the operator remained a safe distance away…

This is so DI! I am going to buy the books you recomended by Telsa, Alan, are there others? Though this type of science is way out of my understanding, it is still fasinating.

I have a relative who helped to create the fiber-optic system for telephone communications, and though am sure he already knows much about this man, it may intertain him to read more, (and of course I will direct him here to DI! also.)

I wish Telsa had been born later in our life times, wouldn’t it be great to have known him in life and actualy had this brilliant mind working in the world today?

Once before I stated my simple theory that past civilizations had massive technology greater than ours, and I can not help but wonder if Telsa might not have tapped into that knowledge. So sad that his brilliance was wasted by ignorance and fear.

Happy Birthday Dear Floj, tell us, when is Your pie cookbook being printed,(?) lol. We are having a chocolate cream tonight, in your honor. Best wishes and big hugs, SWAK.

Tink

Posted 11 July 2007 at 07:45 am

Well crap, I misspelt Tesla’s name three or four times there, sorry guys; need more coffee.

MikeyToo

Posted 11 July 2007 at 09:07 am

From the wiki article on Wardenclyffe Tower: “An additional condition of which we are now aware is that the earth possesses a naturally existing negative charge with respect to the conducting region of the atmosphere beginning at an elevation of about 50 km. The potential difference between the earth and this region is on the order of 400,000 volts.”

Everything I read about a “space elevator” seems to suggest that the current favorite building material is carbon nanotubes, which should conduct electricity. Now, if you take a conductive cable and extend it out through the atmosphere, put a nice fat insulator at the base and string power lines…

*goes off to patent his invention*

oneeyechuck

Posted 11 July 2007 at 09:54 am

I don’t comment very often, as someone else usually says what comes to mind as I’m reading the articles. The readers of this site are some of the most thoughtful people I’ve come across on the web and I am proud to be one of them.

Byrden said: “I am intrigued by the notion of sending power into the Earth or the atmosphere, for people to pick up at remote locations. I am especially intrigued to know whether they would pay the bills.”

Tesla’s idea was to give the power away freely, but to hold patents on the devices (and tunings) that could tap into it. His benefactor/nemesis George Westinghouse blasted the idea of “free” electricity, fearing that his company would be on the hook for the colossal expense of building the transmitters without the benefit of customers paying a monthly bill. He was really only hedging his bets against patent infringement ( I can’t site any reference sources, but search ” Tesla vs. Marconi” as an example)

Our world would probably be quite different if Tesla had followed his mother’s desire for him to become a priest.

“pirated phonograph cylinders, and lewd photos of bare-ankled floozies on the TeslaNet”

HA!!HA!!!HA!!!! HA!!!!!

smokefoot

Posted 11 July 2007 at 11:11 am

The Mythbusters tested Tesla’s resonance “earthquake machine” and found that it doesn’t work. Likewise, I think that this energy transmission method would suffer from the same problem – resonance works best on objects without flaws like a quartz crystal; in most objects in the real world the resonance decays too fast, and so doesn’t build on itself to produce an earthquake or store and transmit power.

MikeyToo said: “Everything I read about a “space elevator” seems to suggest that the current favorite building material is carbon nanotubes, which should conduct electricity. Now, if you take a conductive cable and extend it out through the atmosphere, put a nice fat insulator at the base and string power lines…”

The carbon nanotube would not be able to transmit much power – it is extremely thin for it’s length and high resistance. They talk about this in the FAQ on one of the Space Elevator sites.

jheath314

Posted 11 July 2007 at 01:27 pm

Thank you for the damn interesting article!

There seem to be a lot of Tesla fans out there; I do not count myself as one of them. Tesla always irritated me because he had a tendency to exaggerate his accomplishments and potential achievements (death rays? weather-control stations? iPhone-like devices the size of wrist-watches, before transistors were even invented?) At the same time his very real achievements and breakthroughs make it impossible to dismiss him as just a crank. Add his disdain for patient experimentation and methodical documentation, and it becomes frustratingly difficult to determine which of Tesla’s claims contain any scientific or engineering value, and which ones are bogus.

A good engineer makes it possible for others to follow in his footsteps; Tesla seemed more interested in having others regard him with bewildered awe.

EVERYTHINGZEN

Posted 11 July 2007 at 02:16 pm

Cori said: “It’s so sad to see such the ideas of brilliant people get thrown away for reasons like lack of money and doubters.”

And even sadder to see the rest die with them.

Did Albert Einstein have his body dedicated to science? I’d like to see his frozen brain be brought back to life and pumped for info.

And you guys really shouldn’t pick at Alan, he’s a great writer and the Chief-Of-Interesting here on damned interesting.

Helazoid

Posted 11 July 2007 at 02:25 pm

jheath314, it is quite possible he might have lost his interest in science if he had been forced to write explanations down. I lost my love for math when I was forced to write down the solutions to problems in Calculus. Part of what made it so challenging and interesting was actually doing all the work in my head, but when I had to slow down my thought process and actually put it on paper, I lost interest.

To be fair though, one can come up with a miracle cure for cancer, but it doesn’t do any good if people can’t then recreate the cure from well documented research.

noegruts

Posted 11 July 2007 at 04:25 pm

Falco Peregrinus said: While I would agree that the general public’s exposure would and should be slim to nothing, maintenance workers, if they were to try to do their jobs while the transmission is going, would experience massive amounts of microwave and other radiation that could cook them on the inside very badly before they would even register it on their skin and the other radiations may cause cancers. This being said, of course they turn them off for them while they are working, barring accidents, and the distance gained with the towers should allow plenty of dissipation when in operation, one would think, to everyone else. But I’m neither a doctor or an engineer of any field so whatever.

High-voltage power lines are often worked on live, since switching them off is often impractical. The workmen get onto the power lines by helicopter. Scary but true.

Jon

1c3d0g

Posted 11 July 2007 at 04:37 pm

Yes, this man was a genius. ALL of us have so many things to thank this guy for it’s unbelievable. The sheer amount of working experiments and inventions he realized are beyond amazing. It’s a shame good men have to die before seeing their ideas materialized. Happy Birthday indeed Sir, and may the pigeons be with you forever.

Bewildered

Posted 11 July 2007 at 05:12 pm

I’m a firm believer that everything Telsa did, and was planning to do, would work. There’s no evidence to the contrary, none of his experiments ever indicated that an idea he had wouldn’t work. All of his inventions are here working on my desk right now, the flyback transfomer in my monitor, the ballasts in the flourescent lights, the induction motors in the airconditioning, the list goes on… It’s Westinghouse, Morgan and Edison and their GREED for money that stifled the inventions, not the laws of nature… Just look at the electrocution tactics of Edison to see what sort of man he was. For those interested, read “The man that built the 21st century” (p.s. Hey Floj, Make sure you put a good meat pie recipe in there too!)

JamesTX

Posted 11 July 2007 at 07:47 pm

Shuffled off this mortal COIL. Nice :)

James

GigsTaggart

Posted 11 July 2007 at 11:25 pm

Alan:

Tesla was 1 part stage magician, 1 part crackpot, and 1 part scientist. His gas tube demonstration is well understood today, there’s nothing mysterious about it. You can take a fluorescent tube under a high voltage power line right now and see the same thing.

To wit: “‘Evanescent’ means ‘tends to vanish’, which is appropriate because the intensity of evanescent waves decays exponentially with the distance from the interface at which they are formed.”

The name of these fields is pretty telling. There is no physical theory presently that would allow such fields to be extended. That doesn’t mean it’s impossible, of course, but there’s really no evidence at present that anything like tesla’s “world-wide” power system would be feasible.

niftydog

Posted 12 July 2007 at 12:26 am

Hello all, first post from a new member and I’d just like to say that this is the most damned interesting website I’ve encountered in a long, long time – congratulations to all contributors. I’ve spent the last fortnight glazing my wife’s eyes with my over-enthusiastic accounts of the stories I’ve read here. I initially discovered DI while googling for information about Sir John Cockcroft (The Windscale Disaster) from my new office in the Cockcroft Building here at the Australian National University. Then earlier this week I discovered The Seventh Sense and went straight out that afternoon to look for Oliver Sacks books! No website has ever inspired my sense of amazement and curiosity like DI has.

Then to visit today and find an article about the most underrated and misunderstood genius of recent times was an absolute joy. No doubt you’ve inspired me to add to my library again! All day I’ve found myself glancing up at the fluorescent lights in the ceiling, looking at the radio on my desk and thinking to myself how sad it is that his modesty and diligence inadvertently allowed his legacy to be obscured by his more cunning contemporaries. He certainly deserves more recognition for his contributions to modern society, however my interest is piqued by the astounding accuracy with which he predicted future technologies such as mobile phones and the Internet.

I love the Mythbusters to bits, but their methods often leave a LOT to be desired. I remain unconvinced about their results on both the earthquake machine and the brown note, among others. (“Well, it’s not 5 hertz, lets try 6 hertz!” Um, what about 5.34127 hertz, guys?) Surely Tesla spent more than a day or two working on his experiment!

qx

Posted 12 July 2007 at 02:35 am

Some of you guys may or may not be interested in the following:

Telsa’s first / original AC generators in the Edward Dean Adams power plant in Niagara.
Sadly, they were destroyed in 2006.

That is very cool, thanks for the picture. Why were the generators destroyed?

(And the real deal on the stamp on the photo, is a very old type of copyright that either film developers like KODAK or news photographers used way back in those days…I’m thinking it is a Kodak stamp. In the earlier days of photography, Kodak would often supply free film to news reporters and war correspondants, the price being that ugly stamp with bragging rights pasted on all the photos.)

masterlu

Posted 12 July 2007 at 04:47 am

Happy Birthday, Nikola!

Nicki the Heinous

Posted 12 July 2007 at 07:45 am

I love that flying Spaghetti Monster . . . read further on the wikipedia article about Russell’s teapot

qx

Posted 12 July 2007 at 08:29 am

The generators were removed as they are in the process of dismantling the powerstation, which is.. incredibly sad.

Google for ‘confluence niagara’ to see why.
first few links are interesting :)

Dave Group

Posted 12 July 2007 at 08:30 am

Bollo said: “Is the thing on the right of the third picture some sort of flying saucer?”

I think Tink is right in stating that it’s some sort of copyright mark.

Great article. A visionary like Tesla is all too rare, unfortunately. BTW, he was almost knifed by another passenger on his voyage to America. Imagine what life would have been like without his genius.

Spike

Posted 12 July 2007 at 09:15 am

Always great to read about Tesla, he fasinates me because of his genius and eccentricity. Maybe his notes weren’t clear because it was so obvious to him, he didn’t see why everyone didn’t get it or maybe he just didn’t play well with others…who knows?
Great article, Alan. Very nice birthday present for Floj, Tesla is his favorite mad scientist. So, Floj, Happy Birthday and a great big birthday pie with extra whipped cream and candles.

John W. Wagner

Posted 12 July 2007 at 11:04 am

Dear “EVERYONE WHO COMMENTED,”

I am a third grade teacher who for the last 24 years has spearheaded an effort to promote, honor, and preserve Tesla’s name in history by donating his bust sculpture to 19 major universities. The busts are bronze, mounted on granite imported from India, and each one is appraised at $6,000 – definitely not junk made of play-dough.

The Smithsonian Institution, IEEE History Committee at Rutgers University, and the vast media have systematically expunged Tesla from history by promoting Thomas Edison as the “King of Electricity and Invention,” and Guglielmo Marconi as the inventor of radio. If this sounds ridiculous, then ask yourself if you have ever seen a reference made to Tesla in any of your school textbooks, or if you’ve know of any power companies whose namesake is Tesla. I’m sure you’ll find many named after Edison, who not only had no involvement in creating our system of electric power, he actually fought its adoption in the late 19th century. Ask yourself also why 19 universities have placed our sculpture on display in their most prestigious buildings if he is such an unimportant figure in electrical science.

These are the same universities in our academic community that for more than a century have ignored Tesla’s monumental contributions to electrical science – that is, until we came along and began changing that sorrowful situation.

I hope you will read all 16 pages of our very popular website at: http://www.ntesla.org. We want our country to “take back” Tesla as one of our own illustrious scientist citizens. Sorrowfully, our country turned its back on Tesla when he died in 1943, and now his native country (the former Yugoslavia) touts him as their national hero. Yet Tesla was a US citizen most of his life. He died alone, poverty stricken, and virtually forgotten in a lonely hotel room, his only home in the 58 years he lived in NYC. Yet his peers in electrical science have elevated his name to stand alongside only 14 other men worldwide, by designating his name to represent a unit of electrical/magnetic measurement. This is the highest honor a scientist could possibly achieve in the area of electrical science. (Examples are: volt, ampere, ohm, watt, hertz, etc.)

We are the vanguard for promoting Tesla properly, and we believe if we saturate major universities with his bust sculpture we will be exposing him to our best engineering and physics students. This can only have a profoundly positive effect in reintroducing Tesla to our best students in science. Right now he is little more than a “Forgotten American Scientist,” the title of our webpage. I hope you will NOT surf over the first page or two of our website and think you know the entire grizzly story – you will NOT. There are many pictures, and it is easy reading except possibly for part of Page 13, which is a bit technical.

To conclude, we hope you will join us by supporting our efforts by buying one of our Tesla T-shirts. Our public school is a tax-free organization and 100% of the money we receive from donations and the sale of our shirts go toward paying for additional busts to donate to universities. If you want a polo shirt with Tesla’s formula for the Unit of Magnetic Flux Density embroidered on it, you will need to get 12 people who want them because at this time we can take orders only in lots of 12. We keep the T-shirts in stock, however.

Please help further this effort – or at least write back to tell us why you have no interest in our “crazy idea” of promoting the name of a man who’s been dead for 64 years.

Tesla fails to get credit for many of the ideas he had first because he was bad at bringing them to market. Marconi gets credit for radio because he made the first practical one to demonstrate to people and sell. Edison owned the businesses to commercialize his inventions so his name was on them. Tesla sold his ideas for AC power so his name didn’t go on the companies, even when his ideas and inventions won out in the marketplace. He IS mentioned prominently in college EE text books I used. Sadly his lack of business sense and eccentricities prevented him from testing and exploiting many of his ideas but people need to remember that not all of them were correct. Lots of the effects he discovered ARE well understood now. People just need to realize that he was equal parts great inventor, scientist, and eccentric and was not some infallible genius. Worshiping him as such is just as bad as forgetting him. Universal broadcast power? Very very unlikely. Short range low power broadcast power? Sure! We might even have a practical use for it now that we have started carrying around a ton of electric-powered devices on us most of the time. This has only really started to take of in the past 15-20 years. Before then about the only item people would have on them that needed power was a watch. I have my reservations on if this would have taken off but one never knows. It may have been popular simply to avoid having to wire up places for electrical outlets everywhere.

Coherent

Posted 12 July 2007 at 01:46 pm

Charging the atmosphere is kind of a stupid idea, especially in the modern age of environmental concern for the planet. There would absolutely be significant effects on plant and animal life. If a house could easily pull power from the ionosphere, how about a tall tree? Would our nation’s forests need to learn to live with kilowatts of electricity heating their trunks constantly?

It’s visionary, but unnecessary, and it would waste power like there’s no tomorrow.

j4m3sb0nd

Posted 12 July 2007 at 04:17 pm

One of my favourite maddened geniuses! DI!

Bewildered

Posted 12 July 2007 at 04:55 pm

Sending power through the air is useless, send it through the earth! One day my precious… one day… we will show these intolerable misbelievers the true power of the force!

Helazoid

Posted 12 July 2007 at 05:53 pm

I disagree about the waste of power, if what bewildered (post 12) says is true, then in theory one could keep pumping power into the atmosphere via solar power, wind power, hydro, etc and all that would be needed to maintain it is 480 horsepower. Can any power plant today claim it takes so little to store any energy it produced that wasn’t immediately used by its customers? As for heating trees and plants, they would be fine because they would not be in tune with the field and thus not be able to draw from the field.

I find myself agreeing with bewildered again (post 46) the main reason we don’t see this type of power transfer today is GREED. With a power system so easy to maintain and transfer, we would probably be driving electric cars and flying electric planes. A car powered this way could easily be rigged to add energy back into the system during breaking. How then would oil companies be able to suck us dry with their price on gas?

Maybe a power system like this could be a possible solution to Al Gore’s ‘An Inconvenient Truth’. If global warming is for real, then we have to figure out a way to reduce carbon emissions, etc. Everyone has gotten used to a certain standard of living, so I don’t see us going back to riding bicycles and not watching TV or browsing the internet. But we don’t have to continue wasting energy either with inefficient ways of burning coal and gas.

In the 90s I remember seeing a show on 60 minutes about a guy who powers his TV, washing machine, etc just by riding a bike. If its that easy for 1 person to power a house, and in the future electricity was wireless, then maybe we could even solve America’s obesity problem by making riding a bike the only way to pay for your electricity. Who knows, we might even be able to make the world safer by figuring a way to force lightning strikes add power to the system instead of hitting the ground, trees, houses, YOU, etc.

Hoekstes

Posted 13 July 2007 at 04:34 am

OK it’s Friday the 13th. So good luck to you all. Unless you’ve already been struck by lightning, stay away from the Tesla towers. Nostravaria Davarish.

spikyface

Posted 13 July 2007 at 02:00 pm

That was a great article, I’ve always admired Tesla but never read such a well written article on him

Thank you

Byrden

Posted 13 July 2007 at 02:07 pm

>> How then would oil companies be able to suck us dry with their price on gas?

Could you explain one thing. Who will pay to inject all this free power into the atmosphere?

I know there are many comparisons – free health care, toll-free roads, etc. all paid for by taxes. But those services stop at the border. What country would pay for a service that all the other countries could pilfer?

Helazoid

Posted 13 July 2007 at 05:00 pm

In response to Byrden, no one will pay because business tends to go with what is more profitable to them, than what is best for the consumer. The next DI article ‘Coley’s Cancer-Killing Concoction’ is a good example of how business works. William Coley discovers a cure for some forms of cancer that can be easily grown as a vaccine and which should have sparked more interest in research that could have led to a cure for all forms of cancer, but instead big business swept it under the rug because they could charge bigger bills and thus make more money for the great technology of chemo/radiation therapy.

jamesh

Posted 13 July 2007 at 07:28 pm

Hi DI, what a damn interesting article!

The eccentric mad scientist seems to be a label given to Tesla by the less informed and the great inventor given by some others. I think we should look at the features of this man:

– mathematics. When it comes to mathematics he was like a human computer. His computuations were virtually instant and he could store results and further computate and visualise the problem without needing to write it down.

– visualisations. His ability to visualise allowed him to design functional systems in his mind, find problems and improve that design and actually see it functioning in his mind.

Given these talents he set about creating inventions; creating solutions for classic problems. For example, the mathematical description of the shape of turbine blades, to more efficiently convert his rotating machinery to the physical flow of a liquid or gas.

Most of us are aware of his most important work: to create a more useful and reliable type of electric motor/generator. This was based on alternating current (AC) which provided a means of efficiently delivering electricity over large distances and allowed it to be used in more efficient electric motors. AC supplies can be transformed to voltages that allow efficient transmission of power over long distances. Telsa invented all of this: the means to generate, transmit and use the electricity system we still use to this day.

While an extremely practical man, able to construct increadible machinery, Tesla was primarily a theoretical man. His inventions are a physical representation of his own theories. I think this is where the “mad scientist” label comes from. He spends a lot of time dreaming/thinking and probably not enough time defending his material goods and well-being.

Since Tesla was thoroughly destroyed by his competitors and experienced an overwhelming amount of “bad luck” (or perhaps a victim of well timed sabotage?), he probably suffered from some sort of break down in the last part of his life. This could explain his strange, dreamy, anti-germ and pigeon loving lifestyle he is famously accused of.

The Damn Interesting article above focuses on perhaps Tesla’s most famous “big dream” to supply electrictity to all citizens of the world. The very idea is controversal and the science is very unproven but maybe there is some sort of unrealised point to it. Maybe the Earth’s crust in a resonant circuit can actually transmit electricity more efficiently than a lossy HT transmission system? Maybe one day there will be universal world peace? I think the world was not ready for Tesla when he was in the prime of his life and for some of his less explained theories the world will not be ready to understand his theories for centuries to come.

I will watch with great curiosity as I age (I am currently 42) to see if any other Tesla theories become reality in my lifetime.

I view Tesla as primarily an inventor. His workshops and prototypes were a means to bringing his inventions to the people. He succeeded in this quest while he could, bringing an electricity system that could deliver power to homes hundreds of miles from the power station. His inventions such as transformers allowed other inventors in future times to realise products like broadcast radio and even television sets. His attempts to illustrate electromagnetic energy using his invention of a flourescent tube led to more efficient lighting in the future. The list of his inventions is simply staggering. Just look at his patents. Read about what happened when he died. How the US government seized his documentation and retained it for 3 months before releasing it. Did they release it all?

Tesla envisaged communications beyond telephone wires, inventing radio, plus speculating the future uses for it. Reading some of his published comments makes me wonder if he could see the Internet we enjoy today as a future possiblity. Tesla provided many of the tools we now take for granted, so lets use them, lets enjoy them!

Cheers,
James H

Bill Beaty

Posted 14 July 2007 at 06:50 pm

The “flying saucer” is an ink stamp reading “Muzeo Nikola Tesla,” which I expect is the mark of the Nikola Tesla Museum in Beograd Yugoslavia.

Here is a clearer version found on a photograph of Tesla’s hand (a famous photo made with Tesla’s early fluorescent lamps):

Tink said: (And the real deal on the stamp on the photo, is a very old type of copyright that either film developers like KODAK or news photographers used way back in those days…

Tink

Posted 14 July 2007 at 10:38 pm

Ah ha! Thank you Bill , for your helpful imput.

I have seen stamps very much like this many times in my life.
My dad was a journalist photographer during the Korean war; then during the ’70’s I worked at a Miesel photo finishing lab, (at a computer the size of this room). I remember seeing many photos with a similar mark. Perhaps the shape is a standard used in general to copy right , that is with the owners name or initials used as per record?
Thank you for takeing the time to research this for us and posting the helpful info! :-)

nona

Posted 16 July 2007 at 06:03 am

Tesla is so the coolest scientist. I’ve never really understood his work, not being scientifically minded, but it looked spectacular….

EVERYTHINGZEN – Einstein did dedicate his body to science. Unfortuntely, his brain was sliced up into tiny pieces and handed out to various people so they could study it and try to find out what made him so clever.

HiEv

Posted 16 July 2007 at 11:26 am

jarvisloop said: “2. Does anyone here know if any scientist has proposed the idea of producing electricity without the use of power plants?”

Just to be clear, Tesla’s design still required power plants, it just transmitted the power without power lines.

jarvisloop said: “Electricity exists naturally throughout all of Earth, of course. Has anyone proposed a method to harness and transmit this natural electricity? A gigantic Tesla coil is an example of this concept but too unwieldy for any practical use.”

No, a Tesla coil isn’t really an example of harnessing or transmitting natural electricity, it’s just a transformer. Yes, there are methods to harness “natural electricity” but there is not much to be gotten, it can be unreliable, and more power requires that plates be placed in the ground further apart. See:

In short, there is no strong link between working with electricity or electromagnetic fields and negative health effects in large well-controlled studies, and that goes for both strong and weak EMF. Some studies have even found positive health effects for large EMFs, including bone and tissue healing. As for whether large scale transmission of power would have caused other problems, that’s not an easy question to answer.

EVERYTHINGZEN said: “Did Albert Einstein have his body dedicated to science? I’d like to see his frozen brain be brought back to life and pumped for info.”

No, his body was cremated, but his brain was (possibly) stolen, examined, cut up, “lost,” found, and eventually given to Princeton. See the DI article:

Helazoid said: “In response to Byrden, no one will pay because business tends to go with what is more profitable to them, than what is best for the consumer. The next DI article ‘Coley’s Cancer-Killing Concoction’ is a good example of how business works. William Coley discovers a cure for some forms of cancer that can be easily grown as a vaccine and which should have sparked more interest in research that could have led to a cure for all forms of cancer, but instead big business swept it under the rug because they could charge bigger bills and thus make more money for the great technology of chemo/radiation therapy.”

Wrong and wrong.
The research is still ongoing, and some progress is being made.
It’s funny how people blame big business for all the worlds ills. You wouldn’t even have a computer (let alone a system of tubes to send your mistaken views over) without big business.

Rage of Reason

Posted 25 August 2007 at 01:12 am

Tesla was given enough funds to reveal the essence of his visions after which many of his papers were lost, stolen, uncatalogued or damaged (as was eloquently expressed in wikipedia). Although Tesla may have intended the world to benefit from his findings, his financer’s concealed objectives were of quite a different nature. Rumors say that his Wardenclyffe construction may be related to the Tunguska incident, which was vehemently denied by ‘regular’ science without credible argument (an impact crater is absent to sustain the meteor theory and the subsequent level of radiation lacks to confirm the theory of early nuclear experiment). Tesla’s discoveries would have interfered with the global plans of powers that be. Since he was not under their control, both his urge to invent and life outside the lab were simply manipulated. I believe crucial elements of his currently uncatalogued patents are applied in qualified systems like H.A.A.R.P. The aims of projects like these conflict with Tesla’s views, efforts and hopes.

IndianaEnoch

Posted 03 September 2007 at 05:29 pm

I think Tesla was interested in something more than electricity, frequency. There is something about it we do not understand yet, and all of his experiments appear to be related to frequency.

JoshDestardi

Posted 27 September 2007 at 11:20 am

With a name like “tednugentkicksarse,” I can understand the slight arrogance that pervades your responses.

A total republican/conservative, I assume?

No, “big business” isn’t to blame for EVERYthing that happens, but to brush it away in one full stroke that it isn’t responsible for MANY things that are unethical, is intellectually dishonest.

“I think there is a world market for maybe five computers.”
— Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943

Big business sells what the public thinks it wants or needs, and the means to which Big Business supplies those demands are often irrelevant to cashing in.

Wake up.

yellowdingo

Posted 12 October 2007 at 05:10 pm

Tesla always manages to amaze.

K No

Posted 29 November 2007 at 10:52 am

I’m currently about 300 feet away from where the Wardenclyffe Tower once stood. We’ve made several attempts to enter the remaining facility (only a small building and the massive cooling pools remain) but we’re usually met by security guards even to this day.

somethingawful

Posted 29 June 2008 at 01:08 pm

Way to make cell hones before landlines Tesla.

That was one Serb that was waaay ahead of his time.

sirspudd

Posted 08 September 2008 at 03:08 pm

Very cool to read a readily digestible account of Tesla’s ambitions.

I would seriously recommend : “The Witches of Chiswick” which is a fairly madcap book based in a future when Tesla realized every ambition. Zero factual content, but a blast.

sleepy39

Posted 09 September 2008 at 09:14 am

But then Al Gore couldn’t have claimed he invented the internet.

Two Cents from Girth

Posted 09 September 2008 at 11:52 am

Amazing how an Edison could thrive during the financial downturn while a Tesla falters… Is it the man and his oppourtunities, fate or perhaps the most important, his personality. Tesla’s vision was far advanced and wide reaching as were his skills; but as many of us have learned, if it is a vision shared by only one it is far greater a challenge than a vision shared by many. Again, perhaps it was not his genius regarding the use of the heavens but an inability to be down to Earth and inspire the vision within the many. That was what was required of him…an ability to interact, draw the picture the common man can identify with and grasp in order to bring an new era to mankind. How cruel our lives can be at times with all the ability but with no stage inwhich to perform…a voice of Science drowned out by the humm of a filament. Where Edison could screw in a light bulb and illuminate a wire, Tesla possed the Science to transform the Earth into a massive conductor where an illuminated world free of wire could exist…

eROKv

Posted 10 September 2008 at 08:58 am

perhaps his worldwide wireless electricity idea never got off the ground (and hasn’t since) because theres no way for the big energy companies to charge you for it? hmmm?

Two Cents from Girth

Posted 10 September 2008 at 12:43 pm

Well if we are to be in a government regulated socialized state, as many clamor and have visions to that effect (ie Liberal Democrats and their pet the press), eliminating some energy companies would be a bad thing??? Hummm? Something about cake and eating it too? I am starving…
A permit fee to use the wireless system… there is always a way to charge…geeze!

BlackFoxOne

Posted 14 September 2008 at 07:28 am

Sounds to me like Telsa may have been a few fries short of a Happy Meal back in his day.

Jiff

capthank

Posted 26 September 2008 at 06:32 pm

well guess what everyone Tesla’s dream has come true we now have wireless electricity!!! yes you heard me right it is hear now Intel has developed it and now you can use it to power your computer or cell phone or any other type of appliance. they demonstrated it on stage in San fransico and lit up a 60 what light bulb, Happy birthday Nickolas your time has finaly come!! Times the are a changin!!!

Silverhill

Posted 29 September 2008 at 03:22 pm

capthank, wireless electricity has been possible since, say, Tesla’s heyday. What is new, apparently, is a way to transmit it with some degree of practicality.
(P.S. — the word you wanted there is watt, not “what”.)

MortallyWounded

Posted 11 November 2008 at 08:49 am

I’m no electrical engineer, but it seems to me that by rigging your house to receive wireless power from a Tesla station would automatically make it highly vulnerable to natural lightning strikes. So far, nobody has been able to successfully harness the power of lightning. But that will change in the near future, I am certain. If and when that does happen, one must consider that a bolt of natural lightning would contain enough electrical energy to power a small home for a very very long time. In that case, wouldn’t a Tesla station be rendered obsolete?

I also wanted to mention that if Marty McFly indeed travelled back to 1955, his very presence would alter the environment just enough to practically guarantee that the clock tower would not be hit by lightning.

Becky

Posted 15 December 2008 at 11:40 am

I read an article, that I am in search of at the present, that revealed Tesla’s opinion of the Ark of the Covenant. He had no problem figuring out what it was by reading the instructions and materials Moses used to built it. He stated it was a powerful capacitor that built up it’s charge when carried in a forward motion. The silk curtains rubbing against the gold plated ark was a key to building up of the electrical charge. It would electrocute anyone who dared touch it. That also explains the very long wooden poles used to convey it from place to place. Of course the superstitious and ignorant followers believed the lies of Moses and thought it was god in the box. The christian world would have never wanted that information made known. Tesla’s closest friend was Mark Twain, a devout atheist, which was another mark against him in a world of superstition and myth believers.

Also, his research into the earth as an electrical conductor makes one stop and consider that the ancient sites such as stone henge all around the world were more than just huge rocks. Many are of the opinion that they are part of an ancient power grid. Mankind may be just getting back to the level of knowledge that was long ago lost. We may not be as smart or advanced as we think.

Two Cents from Girth

Posted 15 December 2008 at 07:36 pm

Becky,
I was at Stonehenge last month and did my ancient civ. paper on that place. I enjoyed the site and its surroundings. It does lend itself to mystic properties, dudes in white robes on a full moon also help that cause… Stonehenge was a multi purpose building, I could care less what Leonard Nimoy was paid to say or what the mystics would have you believe. Something that large and the way it was constructed begs to be used for all types of things. With a wood covering and walls it is instantly transformed into a fort, market center, church, town hall, great common sleeping room, a stable and many more things all in one shot with simply a wooden frame. As a builder, I see the practicality of construction, both old and new. This is a multi functional building, not just a stone calendar where Holy men check to see if all is well with the world a few times a year, spare me… However, the wood in certain areas could be removed on those special days to add some mystical fervor on the solstice so the head holy man could say everything is ok, we can have our festival and life can carry on as usual… It is a great structure in the fact it intigrated common needs into one building: Spiritualism, Defence, Shelter, Storage, Marketing along with other factors, welcome to civilization…
I believe we took a path away from Teslas work and have been limited in our advancement. I believe magnetic energy exists on this planet… duhhh we are on large a huge piece of metalic rock in motion, of course we will have magnetic forces at work. What I have not seen is actual magnetic research to show that this spot is more magnetic than that and be able to say, “look here, that is why this big old structure was built.” Could a case be made for the Pyriamids, Macchu Pichu, The Empire State Building, Chitzen Itza, the McDonald’s on main street, a Wal Mart? Sure… I am certain, at times there exists magnetic anomolies at all of these places in one form or another. My point is, to what end?? What are the practical benifits of centering a structure on a magnetic field of this low instensity flucuation? I have read of Teslas work and opinions of the past. As far as the Bible goes here is another tidbit for you. I thought of this while in school a few years back. The Hebrews freshly freed from the Egyptian captivity venture into the dessert led by a cloud by day and fire by night. I’ve heard conflicting reports on how many Hebrews there were 500k-6 million, alot…
That many people in a dessert terrain would raise a cloud that could be seen for miles during the day and at night a pillar of fire would be visible in the night sky with the many thousands of campfires at night. Makes sense? But it is still miraculous they were preserved by God… Again, in my opinion, Science isnt a tool to debunk God, it helps to reveal the secrets… I agree the Ark was a fiercesome tool and was feared and reveared. What if it was a capacitor?? God still resided w/ the people as God does today. Just a matter of Faith, either it is a part of your reason/being or it isnt… I agree we are not a smart as we think, we are a very arrogant and often misled lot. However, we do have potential and a way of making it by the skin of our teeth :)

Becky

Posted 16 December 2008 at 08:37 pm

Sometime when you get a chance do a google on Ancient Earth Grids and see the many opinions available. No, we have no idea what the ancient mystery sites are all about and we may never know. I live in Georgia not far from the Georgia guidestones and that is another interesting and scary subject. No one knows why they were commissoned or by whom. They are enormous and must have cost a kings ransom so whoever had them built was serious.

I am not a believer in the bible and consider all religions to be enslavements by very cunning men who saw a clear way to use mankind for power and greed. There is no evidence at all for an enslavement of Hebrews in Egypt at any time. Whoever Moses was, he was educated in the house of Pharoah so he would have been a gifted magician and sorcerer as all egyptian priests were. He would have known all the latest gadgets and technology the common masses would know nothing of. There was found a stone stele in Egypt telling of the ousting of a minor Pharoah with his followers. We may never know the truth but I can’t take seriously a deity that condones the rape of little girls and wholesale slaughter of all non-hebrews. The character of Moses speaks of coins that were not minted until hundreds of years after his death. He talks of all the rulers of Judah by name hundreds of years before some are even born. He mentions cities that did not exist in his day. No one knows who wrote the Torah but now it is obvious it was not written until approx. 560 BC. Israel Finklestein is one of the top and most respected of the Jewish archaeologist and professor at Tel Aviv University in Israel and he has a video on google called The Bible Unearthed that shows the history of the bible tales are very questionable and proof of them is almost non-existent. When the Jews begin to come forward with such news, it is time to take stock of what we have been taught. It is a very good documentary. I am a devout truth seeker and have read hundreds of books on the subject. The OT god was a reflection of the minds who created him and it is a sad reflection to me. Actually, Genesis is a reworking of the Sumerian Epic of creation that precedes the bible by 400 to perhaps 1000 years. The Hebrews most likely learned all those myths during their exile in Babylon/Sumer and used them to base their history and religion on. We all don’t have to agree but we should always share and listen. There is enough fighting going on over religion as it is.

Silverhill

Posted 05 January 2009 at 05:06 pm

Two Cents from Girth said: “I believe magnetic energy exists on this planet…”

There is definitely magnetic energy here, as long as the core dynamo functions — which it does, almost all the time. There are those irregularly-occurring downtimes during field reversals, but they are short on a geologic timescale.

“…we are on large a huge piece of metalic rock in motion, of course we will have magnetic forces at work.”

Just being in motion is not enough. There must be some ionization as well, in order to be able to get a current established. Once you have that, there is inevitably a magnetic field.

“What I have not seen is actual magnetic research to show that this spot is more magnetic than that and be able to say, ‘look here, that is why this big old structure was built.'”

Here and here are some global magnetic-intensity maps to consider (although they are not correlated with specific places of interest, such as holy sites [or even Wal-Marts!]).

“I’ve heard conflicting reports on how many Hebrews there were 500k-6 million, a lot…
That many people in a desert terrain would raise a cloud that could be seen for miles during the day and at night a pillar of fire would be visible in the night sky with the many thousands of campfires at night.”

I suspect that such fires would give a large glow visible in the sky, rather than a single fiery column — though I do wonder what they would have used for fuel for so many fires, for so long, in such an area!

kenfucius

Posted 05 January 2009 at 09:36 pm

Telsa was a liar and a fraud.

kenfucius

Posted 05 January 2009 at 10:18 pm

Becky: “I am not a believer in the bible and consider all religions to be enslavements”

but you believe in some stacked rocks w/a cutesy leftist msg erected IN JUNE 1979, as if this is somehow “mystical”. How sad for you. Get out and read a little bit.

Silverhill

Posted 06 January 2009 at 02:57 am

“Get out and read” more than a little bit about Tesla, kenfucius. He was neither liar nor fraud, although even he had a few crackpot ideas. AC power, radio, fluorescent lights — all Tesla inventions — are not the products of falsity; rather, they are the fruits of one of the greatest geniuses known.

kenfucius

Posted 06 January 2009 at 10:59 pm

Oh, Tesla was a genius but that Telsa was a fraud and liar.

Silverhill

Posted 07 January 2009 at 03:35 pm

kenfucius said: “Oh, Tesla was a genius but that Telsa was a fraud and liar.”

I see — you’re talking about someone else, named “Telsa”. ;-)

Ignoring typos for the moment, though, let’s see your evidence. Unsupported accusations, such as yours, are useless. Using reliable sources, cite your reason(s) for your claim — or else just STFU.

“cackled diabolically”
Usually DI humor makes me grin, but I cant picture this man cackling diabolically.
I think he would have frowned upon diabolical cackling.
I don’t think it right to idolize any person, no matter how great, but if were to start idolizing,
Nikola would be at the top of the list.

Silverhill

Posted 17 January 2009 at 02:02 am

kenfucius said: “let’s see your evidence.”

After you, of course. You made the first assertion, so you have the first burden of proof. (Your “proof” will have difficulty standing up against the records of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, wherein are such things as Tesla’s patents for the basics of radio. Oops — I went out of turn, by providing (reference to) proof of my contention. Sorry. Go ahead with yours, now.)

Unsupported adoration, such as yours,

“Adoration”? Poppycock! “Great respect”, now, is a valid descriptor*. And, as I said above, I’ve provided (indirect) support. So, both of your terms are in error and are therefore worse than useless.

*Of course, I do not mean unqualified respect. Tesla was a weirdo in several ways, such as his obsession with multiples of 3; his insistence on having piles of napkins (18 per meal); his desire to calculate the volume of his food before eating it; his pathologic fascination with pigeons; etc.
I do not respect these aspects; I regard them with amused (or baffled) curiosity. His proven, demonstrated technical achievements, however, deserve any thinking person’s respect.

666mimi999

Posted 08 February 2009 at 03:12 pm

It would be nice if it worked !

Pure_Light

Posted 01 March 2009 at 01:53 am

Speaking of Tesla, we need to reignite the youth of this nation to get interested in science again. We are falling behind. I like what they did out in Michigan, you bring a light bulb moment to all of us. The Redway Parent Teacher Association announced that Mobile Ed Productions of Redford, Michigan will be traveling to Redway School on Monday, Feb. 9, to present an all school assembly titled “Physics Is Fun.”

The program is based on Sir Isaac Newton and his laws of physics, as well as the inventions of Robert VandeGraff and Nikola Tesla.

First students discuss sound; what it is, how we hear, why we hear, and the difference between loud and soft sounds. Several demonstrations are used in this segment to demonstrate these principles.

Robert VandeGraff and Nikola Tesla’s inventions are explored in detail. These gentlemen pioneered experiments in static electricity and are responsible for many modern pieces of electronics we have today.

Gyros and gyroscopic stability are discussed. Large working models of gyros are introduced to the audience. We then approach gravity and another of Newton’s laws. The program ends with a segment dealing with Newton’s third law, the law of action and reaction. In this segment the audience is introduced to a pulse ram jet engine. It is explained how Newton’s third law applies to jet engines.

The program is complete with visual aids.

salvobrothers

Posted 08 July 2009 at 12:50 pm

We wonder what Leonardo DaVinci and Benjamin Franklin would have thought of these^_^

As brilliant as he was, you would have thought that the concept of efficiency would occur to him. Energy was then and is now too precious to transmit it in such a way that would radiate 99.9% of it into space. I guess he was more an inventor than a physicist, and the mathematics and physics of electromagnetic transmissions had probably not been worked out, although the foundations were definitely in place well before that time, going back to Maxwell’s Equations.

Inductive magnetically coupled power is interesting, and could certainly have some interesting applications. OTOH, oscillating magnetic fields also generate currents in the brain, and are actually used to do so (TMS), to change brain function. They also cause seizures. Hopefully the wireless power would be developed with much weaker magnetic fields than TMS. However, the strength of the electric field an oscillating magnetic field can generate in the brain also depends on its frequency. Bottom line — I’m not putting one of those things near my head.

Mirage_GSM

Posted 11 September 2009 at 07:37 am

erikmartin said: “As brilliant as he was, you would have thought that the concept of efficiency would occur to him. Energy was then and is now too precious to transmit it in such a way that would radiate 99.9% of it into space.

Well, if it had worked as per specs, the energy would not have radiated into space, but rather “stored” in the earth itself until it was used by a receptor.
With to today’s knowledge about the structure of earth’s ionosphere the project would maybe still be feasible but not practical, however Tesla didn’t have all that knowledge in his time, so it was impossible for him to know.

alexdds

Posted 02 June 2010 at 02:44 pm

ok interesting article very useful in the information i was seeking on how the testa tower actually worked. The electricity generated from this thing one required an input source to create the resonance however there is nothing that will stop a reciever from building their own receiver of this resonance so the electricity would still be free which is why Edison pulled Tesla’s plug.
The rod which extends 300 feet into the earth’s crust is interesting, anchoring the earth, … probably means certain type of vibration was to occur. Whether this has to do with earth’s magnetic field, or the ionizing of our atmosphere is not very clear although i like the atmosphere approach much better.
consider using our oceans and waves to turn a generator that produces the resonance needed to travel via our atmosphere to another location where the wave energy can be harvested. Or a satelite that can utilize solar wind or radiation coming from space to resonate the earth’s atmospheric magnetic field and then a receiver on earth to harvest this energy. Its too bad we lost Tesla we would be far ahead of where we are today if he was around.
If the electricity was free certain big unethical corporations would not be around and i would not be surprised if they already new how tesla did it and are just surpressing this info. I have heard of batteries that will charge themselves as we walk using earth’s magnetic field and our movement so things are slowly advancing anyway

Anthony

Posted 23 October 2012 at 05:41 pm

It DOES work and the U.S. military is using it under the name of HAARP. A side effect of this “free energy” is that it changes weather patterns and can emit super strong VLF waves. Yes, it is now or will be a weapon.

J.j.

Posted 28 October 2012 at 02:46 pm

So, in theory, Tesla invented the internet, no?

Adam

Posted 01 April 2013 at 08:23 am

I have one statement and one question:

Tesla is most absolutely a genius and way ahead of his time.

Who gets to pay for the energy generation that the tower would have given away for free?

foofighter

Posted 23 July 2013 at 01:36 pm

Hmmm…
Below are from an old book about Tesla, written by someone close to him, closer to his life–I think it was from the 1940’s–I’ve lost the book, though.
The overall tone:
Tesla was an incredible, Unusual, advanced inventor, possibly some level of Savant [ in today’s understanding/language], who struggled as inventors do, to get funding. Totally focused on his experiments/ R&D.
It was Extremely difficult for him to socialize, or relate to people, even to get funding.
His attempts to get funding were often badly presented & negotiated.
At first he got funding from various sources, but increasingly ended up prostituting himself to large corporations like Westinghouse & the Gov’t., gradually telling whoever backer, that he’d do what they wanted, then dangling promises of extraordinary things in front of potential backers.
His relationship with Westinghouse went from decent to bad, as Westinghouse pressured him to make his work profitable for Westinghouse–Westinghouse soon realized he could play Tesla for whatever he could get–then he dumped him.
Tesla did his best to pander to whoever or whatever entity would cough up money to help him continue R&D, but was clumsy at it.
I doubt he bothered to “cackle diabolically”–that sounds like a later dramatized version, out of character for Tesla.
He died a very sad, beaten old man, very poor.
Smart beyond understanding, in those days–wonder how his smarts would stack up these days? Some of his stuff STILL isn’t understood/known.

Those blackouts in Colorado…
The altruism of youth was showing. His whole endeavor in Colorado, was to make electricity travel through the earth, so everyone could plug into it freely to use it. He was bit theatrical with electrical shows, hoping for Backers.
When Tesla fired up his machines, they literally shorted out the generators providing power to nearby towns.
Never mind it would be rather “inefficient” [what? no one profits from it?!?], & could have untoward effects–that it shorted out the towns power supplies, showed it could do other really unwanted things, as well.

That AC current…
Tesla, amazingly for his socially ineptitude, managed to scoop Edison because:
Edison promoted DC current too long; DC was not profitable for Westinghouse.
Tesla pandered more successfully, at that time, to Westinghouse & others; came up with a way his moneymen could profit, & centralize control of power making/selling–Tesla no longer cared about that, as his newer focus was on some other R&D he was doing then. [gotta please those who fund your experiments!].

About Wardenclyffe Tower…
Tesla, deeper into courting Gov’t funding, had been working on Weapons systems to present to the Gov’t. Gave them a couple, as examples.
It was a tough sell. He needed to do something that would prove his worth.
Westinghouse had deserted him by then.
The Tower barely got erected in time.
The public reason for the Tower was to preempt Marconi & send wireless radio messages of congratulations, to Perry’s party at the North Pole [they’d left in April to get to their destination].
The hidden reason was to test one of Tesla’s weapons, to prove why the Gov’t needed to fund him.
Other reasons were to prove easy transmission of electricity over distances–air transmission seemed better, by then, than through the earth.
Tesla had been offering the Gov’t weapons of mass destruction such as the free world had never known [for funding, because his other former backers had solidly stonewalled him].
Many were dubious–radio, energy transmission, or weapon, it made many uneasy.
Oddly, [no highly accurate clocks existed then] within a supposed 3-minute time variance of the Tower starting to send energy, Tunguska blew up, June 30 [O.S. June 17], 1908.
Many argue there’s no relation.
Especially Government.
Yet, as soon as it was clear Something happened on the other side of the globe, Government demanded the tower get immediately torn down & never rebuilt, anywhere. The parts were taken away & not seen again.
That Tunguska blew up, even scared Tesla.
A pretty good forecast of the post-mortem, all his materials collected by Gov’t, when Tesla died.

Speculating: big boys love big bombs–might be why Gov’t courted Einstein, not Tesla.
Tesla worked in energy–ephemeral, not as well understood, nor as controllable?
Einstein worked in math/physics others could just about replicate, & was more personable, as scientists go. That resulted in the atomic bomb.
Tesla tended to be a bit more mysterious, though, he’d given away much with little thought of recompense.

Tesla & HAARP Arrays….
HAARP is directable, focusable–having many sites worldwide, makes it easy to use for weather, as well as Other things.
HAARP can be focused in ways the Wardenclyffe Tower couldn’t be.

No harm from EMF’s??
Please “follow the money” on research; also, check out the parameters of the studies–too many mistakes that sway results, are common as dirt.
Sweden did much research on EMF’s & proved there IS health risk, when done wrong, or over-exposed.
So profound were the results, they mandated protections for people, because so many cell towers blanketed Cities. If there is no harm in EMF’s, WHY did Sweden take precautions of mandating certain protections from them?
Why are there people who have been adversely effected? I posit a theory: That as all living creatures have microscopic bits of magnetite in each cell, and that some have more than others, perhaps those with more particles in their cells, are more sensitive to EMF’s, some even becoming ill and dysfunctional from exposure to EMF’s.
Clearly,Tesla to sit in a Faraday Cage in his Colorado lab, with megaVolts swarming all over the cage, must mean he didn’t have many particles in his cells?

Just tossing a few more “2-bits” into the pond.

IAmTesla

Posted 24 November 2013 at 04:04 am

Cool.

Japs

Posted 09 January 2014 at 11:55 pm

Wireless Transmission of Electricity by Tesla is one example of a Suppressed Knowledge, it is suppressed by the bankster/elite/royal family who owned, controlled and manipulated the world to their best interest. Humanity is in great trouble now! We must act now before it’s too late!

Sabrina Legault

Posted 05 February 2014 at 07:54 am

Floj said: “Wow, Damn Interesting for sure! Tesla is easily my favorite scientist and engineer, and we have the same Birthday! He was so far ahead in technology that his feats of engineering seemed like magic to the world. His discoveries match our advancements even today!

That’s such an amazing idea to user the world to transmit power! I just wonder why we haven’t seen more movement towards such a system… hmm. I would love to see a TeslaNet in my lifetime! If we can master fusion power we’ll have energy to spare!”

money!! it wouldnt make much profit… and it would be much cleaner.. too bad our society is based on profit

Clark Diesel

Posted 10 June 2014 at 10:26 am

Who are we to question Tesla?

young science enthusiast

Posted 24 June 2014 at 02:29 am

tesla is my 2nd hero in science next to leonardo de vinci because he was a man ahead of his time decades ahead.
but leonardo was infact centurys ahead of his time .

i wish some one would finish what tesla started
but unfortunatly the out come will have negative affects such as unemployment for workers at power plants except for worker at tesla’s would be towers. and possibly more

Rajiv

Posted 30 June 2014 at 11:25 pm

He surely was ahead of his time, more dedicated to his discoveries with commitment to prove his theories through his inventions and show it practically to world who did not believe him and which is difficult for many. Unfortunately in inspite of great intellect his work was suppressed sabotaged just for selfish monetary gain. Such scientist deserved full support for benefit of mankind. World will continue as savage and miserable world unless it does not accept or support such an innovative change.

Tim

Posted 06 July 2014 at 04:09 pm

Has anyone ever heard of the 1908 Tunguska event where Thousands of trees were flatted and scientists to this day still cant figure out what happen! Trees were leveled for miles from a center point as if there were a huge explosion, some think a meteor and other things but I believe it was Teslas Tower of Power! I havent read this article yet but it has to do with Teslas tower being linked to this event, but This event happen the same night and same time Tesla turned his machine on for its once and last time! I believe the energy was pulled from the sky and atmosphere and built up a charge and when it sudden was shut down, it discharged but it was Millions of volts, so much power and nowhere to go but out the other side of the earth!! AMAZING!! I also read where Tesla had the machine destoryed because he knew what happen and he said MAN DOESNT NEED THIS KIND IF POWER OF DESTRUCTION, and it was taken apart and his secrets died with him
! The energy is around us all the time, theres enough power in our atmosphere to run our world forever without a single motor! The earth, with the lava in the center just churning, makes plant earth on huge capacitor!! Too much to explain here but Tesla was a mega genius! He was WAY AHEAD OF HIS TIME!! Here’s the link to the event I was speaking of. – http://www.teslasociety.com/tunguska.htm

I read the comments and see that you are all amazed by Nikola Tesla, scientist, innovator, a Serb from Lika, then in Austria-Hungary, then in Yugoslavia, the whole LIKA AND AREAS NEAR Serbs were … Science can be created where the money is what is the difference compared to the socialist country … Here in Serbia, part of the former Yugoslavia, have a lot of people can not innovators but virtually nothing to create, because they have no options, no money …
You have the next great scientist Nikola Tesla Serbs Mihailo Pupin Boulevard and many others … Do not scientists in the world socialist who went to America, from America would be nothing … almost all science was left to them and they for the most part to their knowledge of the world of sales!

mtncbn

Posted 10 August 2014 at 09:41 pm

Several other mentions of Tesla/Tunguska. This was another interesting read, wanted North Pole explorer to witness, bad aim with data available at the time, hit Tunguska.

I’ve been reading up on this stuff and not only would his idea have been superior but it would have been free energy for the world. In fact, his wireless free energy has been proven hundreds of times. Each time people have been literally hunted down and their inventions taken away, destroyed and the people threatened, hurt or killed. It’s about keeping the people of the world under the thumb of those who control us financially with money.
If we weren’t paying for energy, one of the big ones, we would be able to do a lot more including put a lot of our focus into growing our own food in back yard gardens and such. Imagine if we didn’t pay for food, water and energy the three things we should be able to provide for ourselves, what we could do with our money.

james michael kieffer

Posted 18 August 2014 at 09:38 pm

let us make it happen!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

MJ

Posted 22 September 2014 at 03:52 pm

debbiebf said: “Electricity is not really my “thing”, but aren’t some people scared of living near radio towers because of the energy they put out? Don’t ham radio operators and those working with lots of electricity have higher incidents of cancer? Would the additional electricity coursing through the air have actually created more problems than it solved?”

The means of power transfer is electromagnetic which does not harm biology. There are companies today that sell products using this technology on a small scale to power mobile phone and other smaller devices.

colenot

Posted 29 September 2014 at 02:58 pm

I wonder if there has been any research into how these ideas may have come to him. As i read the article, it brought to mind something I read elsewhere about a few other prominent scienctists. DaVinci, Einstein are the 2 in particular, but also Edgar Cayce. It is documented that Einstein would do “mind experiments or exercises” as he referred to them. I only say DaVinci because of some of the drawings and such that he sketched and include Cayce for the link between all four. It would be fascinating to find out if all four were in fact tapping into “The Book of Knowledge”, “The Akashic Records”, “Book of Life”. If so, then for me it poses another question… How does one tap into this spiritual knowledge pool? and what other kinds of technology is yet to be invented?!!

Damian Zuch

Posted 08 January 2015 at 06:38 pm

I love Tesla; thank you for the great article!
I have always secretly had this idea that one day some smart humans will advance our knowledge of the earth and universe and reveal that everything works on relatively simple principals (I picture it like playing a video game where you collect bits of knowledge at each level and advance through the game adding to what you learned from the previous level).
And simple stuff, like watching the tea bubbles shift in your mug of tea would reveal secrets about how continental drift works and other small/grand relationships like that. I feel like Tesla and Einstein were these kinds of smart humans, learning all the cheat codes to advance the human knowledge base. I wish I was scientifically-inclined and smart enough to understand the way the world works and can be manipulated. Anyway, another great DI article, thanks guys!

rob hamm

Posted 01 April 2015 at 11:58 pm

Setting up a real test Wardenclyffe would be not only impractical, but would also cause the experimenters to incur massive damage costs they would have to pay. (think massive disruption/interference with all communication systems on an absolutely huge scale from the electromagnetic waves both in the earth and ionosphere.) A very unwise experiment.

roscoe p, coltrane

Posted 04 April 2015 at 04:56 pm

Gee I dunno…maybe guys like Tesla and Da Vinci etc aren’t from around here. Another neighborhood…Off planet? consider the Mayans who could travel off planet by a practice that involved body positions. On a planet where greed is the number one priority, the human race is in a pathetic state.

The great thinkers should inspire everyone that sharing and respect for the planet and other humans is the number one priority. I have to say though Tesla, wherever he was from, is a fascinating subject. nice article

Johnny

Posted 04 August 2015 at 07:19 am

Do we have any evidence that this tower would work? It seems we just take his words for it. Today we have many billionaires. One could take up the task to build it if we know how. I’m very sure Elon Musk would since he doesn’t care much for money.

Raito

Posted 02 October 2015 at 07:24 pm

If he succeeded perhaps we don’t have to pay for the electricity bill every month, I really love his inventions. And I am so amaze because his thinking is much too advance on that time, I really like his thoughts and purposes, but I am so disappointed when J.P. Morgan never support his project financially, like what Tesla said, It is possible but It’s expensive.

noagh alfayade

Posted 07 October 2015 at 02:22 am

dame inetresting as I am also interested to manufacture a small tower for charging my battery of inverter.

plz give essential guidelines if possible.

spriteboost

Posted 03 June 2017 at 11:59 am

I was wondering since he buried it 300 feet into the ground what was the earths composition at this point well at least at the tower or all around the earth? That may have a lot to do how it would of been transmitted and why hasn’t anyone else tried reproducing it in this same manner I’ve seen some people in russia where does anyone know what happen with that project?

tom

Posted 01 December 2017 at 08:51 am

Has anyone tried to make a giant Tesla coil today? Like to give power to everyone. Great article!

Harmonic 695

Posted 03 February 2018 at 01:49 pm

to truly undertsand the dynamics of the wardenclyffe tower,you would need to understand the pythagorean 3,4,5 triangle (*72)and its relation to the the earth and the speed of light/electricity as well as why we have 24hrs in a day.
The Cheops Pyramid (light measure) with 144000 casing stones was also a monument to the “physical structure of our realm” as Tesla stated,as well as it being a initiation stucture for the brotherhood.
As a further clue the Twin Towers on (LONG ISLAND) had to be placed there to be utilised as a medium for their destruction …………..40 degrees latitude*60*60.

“the world is a stage” as quoted by Sir Francis Bacon(Shakespeare)
read Bruce Cathies work or why Isaac Newton developed calculas using the cabala contained in the bible and why he wrote on prophecy concerning the book of Daniel and Revelation

JarvisLoop

Posted 17 May 2018 at 06:25 pm

Last.

yeet

Posted 07 January 2019 at 07:21 pm

actually last

RG

Posted 08 January 2019 at 02:28 pm

to discontinuity and Allan Bellows
I believe that Tesla actually planned to connect a foil balloon full of non-flammable helium with a wire to his dome, and use this as a shortcut to the ionosphere. He claimed that he would raise or lower it as required whenever his energy needed to be transmitted. In fact, in some photos show the balloon extended during his experiments, such as this one from teslatech.info.
however, I think he found some problem with it and gave up just prior to the stock market crash

Jim W.

Posted 19 January 2019 at 09:32 am

Electric light bulbs can be powered simply by combining a bulb, copper wire, and a magnet. Since the Earth itself is simply a giant magnet Why can’t technology be developed to tap into that potential source of power already surrounding us.
I watched a you tube video today that was a little over 12 minutes long. The frame at 11:33 had detailed pictures of an ankh and one of those sun things that reminded me of these light bulb magnet things, and I couldn’t help but wonder if they weren’t part of a technology the Egyptians hadn’t quite lost yet. (I’ll post that video behind this post)

Imagine a world where you don’t have to have wires coming to your house or batteries in your car. the power comes out of the air simply because the earth itself is a giant electro magnet. check 11:33 does it suggest a technology that
we haven’t explored.
Image may contain: outdoor

Michelle Kim

Posted 29 April 2019 at 03:37 pm

Tesla, a man of many innovative ideas, limited by the technology of his time. (2019)

JarvisLoop

Posted 17 May 2019 at 06:28 pm

A year has passed already?

I offer the following with apologies to Tennessee Ernie Ford: “Another day older and closer to death.”

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